Meta

Tag: Profits

The Federal Reserve in the United States just released a new report showing that “Total Household Wealth” in the United States has reached a record $94.8 trillion.

That’s an impressive figure.

Even more impressive is that Total Household Wealth has increased by $40 trillion since the lows of the Great Recession in 2009.

No doubt there’s probably a multitude of central bankers and bureaucrats toasting their success in having engineered such magnificent prosperity.

And it’s certainly an achievement worth celebrating. As long as you don’t look too closely at the data.

Total Household Wealth is exactly what it sounds like– the total net worth of every person in the United States, from Bill Gates down to the youngest newborn baby.

So when you add up all the 330+ million folks in the Land of the Free and tally up their combined net worth, the total is $94 trillion.

The thing is that the VAST majority of that wealth, especially the incredible growth over the last 8 years, has been from increases in just two asset classes: real estate and the stock market.

In fact, stocks and real estate alone account for roughly 2/3 of the wealth increase since 2009.

I’ll come back to that in a moment.

Now, simultaneously, we see plenty of other interesting data, also published by the Federal Reserve and US federal government.

Both the Fed and Census Bureau, for example, tell us that over 80% of businesses in the US are “nonemployer” companies, i.e. businesses which only employ one person (the owner), and often provide his/her primary source of income.

Yet according to the Federal Reserve, only 35% of these small businesses are profitable. Most are operating at a loss.

In other words, only 35% of the companies which make up 80% of American businesses are profitable.

You’re probably already doing the arithmetic– this means that a whopping 72% of all US businesses are NOT profitable.

That hardly sounds like record wealth to me.

Shifting gears, there’s the little factoid that an astounding 40% of young Americans are living with their parents– the highest percentage in the last 75 years.

And who can blame them considering student debt in the Land of the Free also hit a record $1.4 trillion three months ago, more than double the amount since the Great Recession.

Speaking of record debt, US credit card debt passed a record $1 trillion, and total US consumer credit hit a record $3.8 trillion last month.

Again, all of this hardly seems like ‘wealth’ to me.

Then there’s the issue of wages, which have remained essentially flat since the 2009 Great Recession if you adjust for inflation.

According to the US Department of Labor, inflation-adjusted wages, aka “real hourly compensation” in the US fell an annualized 0.9% last quarter, and fell a dismal 5.6% in the previous quarter.

Adjusted for inflation, the average American isn’t making any more money.

Once again, this is a pitiful excuse for ‘wealth.’

American businesses aren’t more productive either.

The same Labor Department report shows that productivity in the Land of the Free was flat in the first quarter of this year.

And productivity actually declined in 2016– something that hasn’t happened in at least the last 50 years.

Not to mention total economic growth in the Land of the Free has been pretty pitiful, logging a pathetic 1.6% last year.

And GDP growth in the first quarter of 2017 was just 1.2% on an annualized basis.

The US economy has exceed hasn’t surpassed 3% growth in more than 10-years, and it’s only happen two times so far in this millennium.

Seriously? This is “wealth”?

Look, I get it. Houses are ‘worth’ more than they used to be, and the stock market is much higher.

But these effects are heavily influenced by the trillions of dollars that was conjured out of thin air by the Federal Reserve.

ExxonMobil may be the most telling example.

In early September 2008, just prior to the financial crisis, Exxon had recently reported revenues of $72 billion, with $11.1 billion in net operating cashflow.

For the first quarter of 2017 the company reported revenues of $61 billion and net operating cashflow of $8 billion.

Plus, ExxonMobil managed to add nearly $20 billion in debt to its balance sheet over that same period.

So over 8-years, Exxon is making less money and has more debt. Yet its stock price is actually HIGHER.

More broadly, 66% of the largest companies in the US that have given estimates of their earnings for next quarter have issued “negative guidance”.

Companies expect to make less money. But stocks are near all-time highs.

Does this make any sense? Is that also wealth?

No.

This is nothing more than the result of paper money that has been created by central bankers, allocated to a tiny financial elite, and dumped into the stock market.

It’s the same with real estate. Sure, prices are higher. But it’s not because of fundamentals.

In terms of population, there’s only been a 7% increase in the number of households in the United States since 2009.

There’s been a commensurate increase in the supply of homes as well.

So in terms of supply/demand fundamentals, the average price nationwide shouldn’t be that much higher.

But take a look at this chart, courtesy of the Federal Reserve.

The red line shows interest rates, which have been generally falling since 1990. The blue line shows home prices, which have been rising like crazy since 2012.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to spot the correlation: record low interest rates mean higher home prices.

This isn’t wealth.

It’s just phony paper.

And as the Great Recession showed in late 2008, phony paper wealth can go ‘poof’ in an instant.

With that in mind, it may be time to consider taking some of that paper wealth off the table and setting it aside for a rainy day.

About the Author

Simon Black is an international investor, entrepreneur, and founder of Sovereign Man. His is about using the experiences from his life and travels to help you achieve more freedom, make more money, keep more of it, and protect it all from bankrupt governments.

Our medical system is a “criminal enterprise” and the “vaccine establishment has become a protection racket,” according to Jon Rappoport, in a recent opinion piece contributed to The Daily Sheeple.

Rappoport accuses mainstream medicine of perpetuating the myth that vaccines are needed to create healthy children, and of suppressing evidence to the contrary.

He wrote:

“Those who insist on 50 or 60 shots of germs and toxic chemicals for every child, like it or not, are participating in an ongoing criminal enterprise.

“Their vision is unnatural and perverse.

“It turns out that stimulating the production of antibodies—which is the purpose of vaccines—is not the be-all and end-all of existence. It isn’t the road to health. It isn’t an automatic lease on life.”

Good health is not the result of medical procedures

In other words, Rappoport argues, healthy children are the product of many factors, and building a healthy immune system naturally is far better than relying on vaccines.

History has shown that vaccines can actually trigger an epidemic – and this has been known for more than a century.

From an 1898 book titled “A Century of Vaccination”:

“Smallpox, like typhus, has been dying out (in England) since 1780. Vaccination in this country has largely fallen into disuse since people began to realize how its value was discredited by the great smallpox epidemic of 1871-2 (which occurred after extensive vaccination).”

Other sources have shown that the overall decrease in mortality in children from diseases like scarlet fever, diphtheria and measles since the 19th century has been due to improvements – in sanitation and particularly in diet – and not because of antibiotics and immunization, which were introduced later.

Rappoport says that the “dud” epidemics that we are frightened with every few years are nothing more than the medical establishment’s brainwashing efforts to convince us that we need constant medical care – and that there is no such thing as natural health.

He points out the lack of research conducted on healthy children: “How many studies in peer reviewed journals examine large groups of healthy unvaccinated children?” he asks.

In fact, there have been studies suggesting that children who grow up on farms, for example, have a higher resistance to disease simply because they were exposed to more germs at an early age, therefore strengthening their immune systems.

This “hygiene hypothesis” offers support for the idea that building resistance naturally is better than trying to boost immunity through injecting dangerous toxins into children’s bodies or protecting them from all contact with germs.

Profit is the motivation

Good health is not the result of medical techniques, but Big Pharma would cease to exist if natural health practices became the standard approach.

That’s why the vaccine industry, with the assistance of a sold-out government, is forcing vaccinations on children while doing its best to persecute and criminalize alternative health practitioners.

That’s why children are being injected with deadly poisons by force, while natural treatments such as cannabis are still illegal at the federal level.

The medical establishment is built on lies – and those lies are killing people rather than curing them.

Medical errors are the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. according to a recent Johns Hopkins University study, and that doesn’t even take into account all the deaths caused – directly and indirectly – by standard procedures in doctor’s offices, clinics and hospitals.

Pharmaceutical-based medicine doesn’t provide real cures, and usually – as in the case of vaccines and chemotherapy, for example – the supposed “cure” is worse than the disease itself.

Big Pharma can’t generate profits by actually making people healthy, so they are actually in the business of making people sick – and keeping them that way…

Don’t forget, that PREVENTABLE MEDICAL ERRORS are the THIRD LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH in the United States. And those are conservative numbers, for starters. Secondly, not all deaths via medical mistakes get reported because the data collection method is flawed. That also doesn’t count the millions injured yearly. The for-health for-profit medical system will only change when people take charge of their health. Handing off personal responsibility of your health to others that care about mostly profits is a sure way to stay sick. Of course, $3.3 trillion spent on healthcare and notice how there are NO cures. Not within the conventional medical establishment anyways Do your research, because your health depends on it.

________________________________________________________________

Source: RT America
July 15, 2016

American’s will spend $3.3 trillion on healthcare spending in 2016 – that’s $10k per person. Healthcare expenditures are growing faster than the national economy. Is this a result of Obamacare? To discuss, former health insurance executive Wendell Potter joins “News with Ed” and says that public healthcare options could help bring costs down.

By now you may have heard about the merger plans of German chemicals giant Bayer, which wants to buy Mon(ster)santo. Birds of a feather flock together, as the old saying goes, so I suppose there’s nothing newsworthy about a former charter company of I.G. Farben wanting to buy an American corporation with a similar track record. But part of the plan appears to be that these two GMO giants want to control the marijuana trade (nothing like that good olde “bottom line”), in these articles shared by Ms. M.W>:

As the authoress of the article, Ellen Brown, notes, cannabis and hemp were used not only as a primary argircultural crop prior to the “war on weed,” but were components of various medicines, and it is now acknowledged that the plant has beneficial medical uses:

So why the rush of Bayer, the German GMO-chemical-pharmaceutical giant, and Mon(ster)santo – IG Farbensanto as I like to call it – to enter the cannabis market? Predictably, it’s about patents and profits:

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and “strange stuff”. His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into “alternative history and science”.

Excellent interview with Dr Len Saputo. Dr Saputo is a pioneer in his industry using a mind, body, and spirit approach. After becoming board certified in internal medicine and owning his own private practice for over 30 years, Dr. Saputo began to realize that there was better to treat the patient as a whole person than treating just the symptons with another pill. Author of ” A return to healing: Radical Health Care Reform and the Future of Medicine,” and brainchild of http://www.doctorsaputo.com.

Biotech giant Monsanto reported multiple profit-plummets in 2015 relating to sales for both its genetically modified crop creations and its best-selling herbicide, Roundup. Once again, Monsanto has reported declining profits for the fiscal second-quarter earnings – by 25%.

For Monsanto’s 2nd quarter, total sales for Monsanto dropped 13%; with one of Monsanto’s top-sellers, corn seeds, falling 11%. The biotech giant cites an “unfavorable agricultural market” for its losses, pointing out that:

Pressures in overseas markets is increasing

Farmers are reporting less income due to less-than-ideal harvests

The strength of the U.S. dollar made products more expensive

But the company makes little or no mention of the other key factors affecting its bottom line.

Organic food demand is exploding like crazy – and the figures show no sign of it slowing any time soon.

While the company is admittedly still seeing profits in the billions, the continuous decline paints a bleak picture for the agricultural giant. It means that the massive grassroots movement against Big Biotech giants such as Monsanto is working, and that our collective voice is being more than heard.

With awareness growing on the potential dangers of GMOs and the very real negative impact pesticides and herbicides have on human health and the environment, why wouldn’t anyone go against such an unsustainable, harmful business?

Earlier this year, Monsanto announced that sales in the company’s agricultural productivity segment, which includes its best-selling Roundup herbicide, fell 34% to $820 million for the quarter ending November 30. Monsanto also revealed that it plans to cut more of their work force – a total of 3600 jobs, which accounts for 16% of its global employee base. The biotech giant will also record $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion in ‘restructuring’ costs.